RYAN HAMEL

NETWORK AUTOMATION | NETWORK ENGINEERING

Network Engineer with more than 10 years of experience developing, deploying, and supporting highly secure, scalable, datacenter and enterprise IT networks.

Engineers network infrastructures increasing operational efficiency and cost performance of large-scale datacenter networks. Leverages strong skills in software development to create and deploy applications for network automation and orchestration. Manages strong relationships with internal business units and external customers, working to analyze business and technology processes to recommend, engineer, and implement innovative IT solutions. Currently seeking professional roles as a Network Automation Engineer, Network Development Engineer, or Senior Network Engineer.

PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Led a project at essensys Inc, engineering and deploying Internet Exchange (IX) connectivity, resulting in a shift of over 50% of network traffic migrating away from transit connectivity.
  • Engineered and launched a Python Slack bot at essensys Inc, providing automation to common network support requests, leveraging customized software to streamline support activities, allowing support resources to focus on other strategic IT areas.
  • Created a web frontend demo enabling customers to plan, provision, and decommission wave fiber circuits on demand in Zayo’s customer portal, without interacting with sales and support engineers. This required learning react and Angular, and collaborating with teams to achieve a working demo in production in less than two weeks.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

HARDWARE:

  • Cisco IOS routers
  • Juniper EX and QFX switches
  • Juniper MX routers
  • Juniper SRX firewalls

PROTOCOLS:

  • BGP
  • CDP
  • EVPN/VXLAN
  • GRE
  • ICMP
  • IS-IS
  • LDP
  • LLDP
  • MPLS
  • OSPF
  • RADIUS
  • STP
  • TCP
  • UDP

OPERATING SYSTEMS:

  • FreeBSD
  • Linux (Alpine, Red Hat + Debian-based distros)
  • macOS
  • Windows

SOFTWARE AUTOMATION / DEVELOPMENT:

  • Ansible
  • bash
  • Docker
  • Go
  • Kubernetes
  • Python
  • zsh

TOOLS:

  • Atlassian Confluence + Jira
  • FreeRADIUS
  • git
  • GitLab
  • Google Workspace
  • Microsoft Office + Office 365
  • Nautobot and NetBox
  • OpenVPN
  • Oxidized
  • Salesforce
  • Slack
  • Teams

DATABASES:

  • MariaDB/MySQL
  • memcached
  • Neo4j
  • Redis/Valkey

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Zayo Group, Los Angeles, CA - Senior Software Engineer, Network Tooling (2024-Present)

  • Contributed major changes to mission critical applications by refactoring code into a documented and simplified manner, added additional tests and validations, and swapped proprietary database vendor binary code with an open source thin client version, boosting developer experience and team morale.
  • Took ownership of container and application security by upgrading/replacing Python packages, swapping Linux distribution packages, and editing Dockerfiles to swap base images. A different libc in a Linux distribution like musl requires full application testing due to different socket behaviors.

i3D.net, LLC - A Ubisoft Company, Pasadena, CA - Network Automation Engineer (2024 - 2024)

  • Transitioned into a development role on a brand new automation team focused on writing new automation software, added features and patched bugs in legacy applications.
  • Collaborated with the LAN and WAN teams to understand their day-to-day processes with the goal of architecting new tools and extending or fixing existing new tooling to enhance productivity and streamline various policies.
  • Containerized new and legacy applications for use on Kubernetes, with the help of git, ArgoCD, and CI/CD pipelines. Migrated hard coded application secrets and tokens to special stores. Scaled the applications with the help of various load balancing methods in Kubernetes, and using RabbitMQ.

i3D.net, LLC - A Ubisoft Company, Pasadena, CA - Network Engineer II (2023 - 2024)

  • Engineer, implement, and datacenter networks, including configuring and deploying routers, switches, and firewalls to provide stable Internet connectivity to game studios, game servers, and video + voice communication providers.
  • Improve user experiences by developing network connectivity solutions streamlining access to business-critical systems and data.

essensys, Inc, Los Angeles, CA - Network Support Engineer (2019 - 2023)

  • Engineer, implement, and administer enterprise IT networks, including configuring and deploying switches, routers, networked devices, and other platforms required to provide stable, secure Internet connectivity to co-working and flex office spaces.
  • Improve user experiences by developing network connectivity solutions streamlining access to business-critical systems and data.
  • Collaborate with software development teams to identify and implement code used in network automation and orchestration, ensuring proper code integration and functionality within enterprise production environments.

QuadraNet Enterprises, LLC, Los Angeles, CA - Network Administrator (2018 - 2019)

  • Configured and implemented networking hardware according to immediate and evolving operational needs, building out architectures that strategically integrated with systems and provided more robust network performance.
  • Managed all aspects of network engineering in large-scale IT environments using a diverse set of hardware platforms and software tools.
  • Diagnosed and resolved user-reported issues with network connectivity, ensuring the timely resolution of support cases; troubleshot networking hardware and software, including routers, switches, ISP provisioned circuits, and Internet Exchange (IX) solutions.

EDUCATION

Associate of Science, Network Systems Administration

SANTA BARBARA BUSINESS COLLEGE, Rancho Mirage, CA

VOLUNTEER WORK

  • Hackathon Committee Member / Moderation Committee Co-Founder, NANOG (2024 - Present)
  • Network Engineer / Volunteer, Southern California Linux Expo, Pasadena, CA (2022 - Present)
  • Systems Administrator / Volunteer, Mindat.org, London, UK (2021 - Present)